I’m avoiding stairs today like I ran the Los Angeles Marathon yesterday. All I did were some weighted lunges and squats. Nothing awesome like hitting a 4:09 on my first marathon (go Alexis — she insists it’s her last — and Jorge!) or recording a huge PR (go Claudia!).

Even if I wasn’t running, I had to do my part as a runner. Plus, I live way too close to the course not to go out and cheer.

On Sunday morning, I woke up shortly before 7:30 feeling nervous and excited. I texted Alexis and offered a couple of tips. She seemed nervous but did fine. Mainly, don’t go out too fast and don’t trip over all the throw away sweaters.

I watched a bit of the telecast before making breakfast and heading out to Beverly Hills where Sean met me when I ran LA. It’s close and a good place to spectate since parking is easy.

A little before 9:30 we got to Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive (~mile 17), we waited for our runners with signs and cameras. Fifteen minutes before, I’d received a text message with 20K splits for Claudia, Jorge and Alexis. They were all in the 8-8:30 pace range. Claudia was the fastest, so I expected to see her come by first. I didn’t think it would be so tough to spot Claudia and Alexis since there were fewer women runners around. I was wrong.

We almost missed Claudia. I called as she passed by and she turned quickly. I’m not sure she recognized us, but she did look great. (She held on to the pace and finished in 3:42, a huge PR!)

We never saw Alexis even after I expected her to pass. I held her sign until I got the 30K split update. I’m still bummed I missed her. She would’ve loved our sign.

We missed Jorge as well. And he missed us too even though he looked for us. The corner where we were at had a good number of spectators, so we might have just blended in.

Last, I would have missed Marlene, as I turned to get more, but she spotted Sean. She also went on to earn a 12 minute PR. Go Marlene!

After I knew our friends had passed by, I got out the oranges and pretzels we’d packed. The oranges went by really fast, but the huge bag of pretzels lasted longer. We stayed until about 11:45. I think most of the runners at the point were well in to the 5+ hour range.

The runners were awesome and graciously thanked us for the snacks and loved Sean’s Nelson Muntz sign*. One woman told me, “You don’t know what this means.” Oh, I do. I love oranges during marathons and knew with warmer temperatures predicted folks would need the sodium from pretzels.

Congrats to the all the finishers! Can’t wait to join in on the fun again.

***

Alexis, if you ever want to do it again, I have a sign ready.

*I had sign envy. Sean got a lot of smiles, “ha ha’s!” and even a few runners stopping for pictures. One guy even recognized it from last year’s marathon or 2011. I never knew it was so popular since I haven’t done the cheering thing in a while.

I’ve never been one to blog all my workouts. Lately, I haven’t had any workouts to blog. I stopped doing New Rules of Lifting for Women shortly after starting stage 3 in early August. I had excuses: it’s hot; I’m adjusting to a new job and schedule; I don’t want to get tan lines from my running clothes, those will look awful in wedding photos; I had wedding stuff to do. Of course, those were just excuses. Mainly, I was just lazy.

Being lazy gets old and boring. I miss running, racing and earning new PRs. I had a few of those last fall/winter. Despite some aches and pains that kept me from running higher mileage as I would have liked, I still managed PRs at the 10K, half and marathon distance. I feel most proud of my effort at the LA Marathon where I met my sub-4 reach goal. I didn’t recover well from the LA Marathon and cut back. I tried getting back to training, but fell off again after getting sick. I backed out of the Pasadena half marathon after fainting a couple days before the race. I thought I could use the Runner’s World early summer running streak to build my mileage back up, but it ended up just feeling like a chore.

I’m not in any kind of shape to race these days. I went out for a few miles today. I stayed away from the hills, kept it slow and easy, walked when I needed to, and left the Garmin at home. Even then it was tougher than I expected. I ran/walked 3 miles in ~38 minutes.

I know I need to take my come back slow and be patient. I do have one race goal, the Puente Hills YMCA 31st Annual Turkey Trot. It’ll be the 31st annual race… I can’t miss it.

Prior to joining the Runner’s World summer running streak, I had never run more than 4 or 5 days in a row. I didn’t feel any need to go out every single day. I like my rest days. And more than that, I don’t want to have to wash my long hair daily.

That changed from Memorial Day through Sean’s birthday, also known as Independence Day/Fourth of July. I was looking for a way to come back from my post marathon slump when I’d been putting up 50 and 25 miles total for April and May, respectively.

The rules of the running streak were easy enough: run at least one mile for the 38 day stretch between the two holidays.

I didn’t find the challenge tough to follow, but that’s probably because I did the minimum half the time, especially in the last ten days or so.

General observations:

1. My neighborhood is generally safe enough for short late night runs. (Of course I say this with a sample size of one and a few late night runs.)
I’ve always been a night runner, but had never pushed it past 9-10ish. If it got late and I didn’t get my run in, oh well. That wasn’t an option if I wanted to keep up with the streak. I could’ve gone to the gym, but that would’ve added more time and didn’t really seem worth it for a mile or two.

The first time I went out after 11 pm was after a Dodger game. I did it a few more times after parties or when the day was too busy.

I took precautions for my late night runs. I went out for only a mile to keep it short and close, took my phone, stayed on well-lit streets and let Sean know where I’d be. Once I took out the family dog, VR. The only odd thing that happened was getting startled by a dog’s barking and almost tripping on the sidewalk.

2. The treadmill is okay for short runs and warm-ups.
There’s really no reason for me to rely on a treadmill. I can understand that if it’s very hot, but summer in west LA is generally nice. If I was a day/morning runner, I’d consider taking it indoors since I want to avoid sunburns and odd running tans this summer.

3. Short runs are okay on off days from New Rules of Lifting for Women workouts, but not in the first week.
I would’ve preferred resting on the off days from the first few NROLW workouts. After the initial week or two, I wasn’t really sore anymore, but my legs did feel heavy and I tired easily.

4. I’d consider another running streak challenge, but only if it doesn’t coincide with marathon or half marathon training.
If I’m doing long runs or speed training, I’d definitely like to have the following day off. Additionally, I like the flexibility of being able to move a run from Tuesday to Wednesday if needed. Last, the time commitment to a running streak isn’t much compared to all the long runs.

5. Night running in summer really gets in the way of a social life.
There’s so much going on in the evenings, but I ignored it because I had to run every evening after work.

Running streak by the numbers:
61.4 miles for the 38 days, not much I know
15.2 treadmill miles, done as a warm-up for NROLW workouts
9 runs after 9 pm, 1 was lit up by Fourth of July fireworks
4 runs after 11 pm, (I procrastinate, just a little)
18 runs that were just one mile
4 miles = long run (done once)
1 downhill mile run during a hike with my mom and sister in the Angeles National Forest
1 mile run after eating and drinking way too much at Mamá Toni’s 90th birthday part